UHN Pregame Thread (RIT and Denver too)

[scoop85]

I can't even believe this conversation exists.  Every other ECAC team would kill for Cornell's success, as would about 30 other NCAA teams.  It's not the '60s .... be happy with what you have.  And when you call Cornell "just a bunch of of big, slow guys" then it shows you really just aren't paying attention.

Schafer squeezes every ounce out of the program.  Saying his system doesn't work in the NCAAs is asinine.  6-2 in the first round.  Even in those games when Cornell was supposedly the favorite, because they were the higher seed, they were always doubted - their record was theoretically inflated because of the ECAC etc.... In most of those games, their KRACH rating was lower than their opponent, even if they were the higher seed.  They won those games because Schafer generally gets it done when it counts ... this year is a rarity. That's testament enough right there.

The program will regroup and reload - and be fine.  Anyone who complains about this really just has no idea how easily it could all go South without the right staff.

Listen, I'm disappointed with last night's effort like everyone else.  But our fan base is spoiled.  We have the league's best coach, and while some might wish for a different power play strategy, "faster" players, etc., I'm happy with what we've got.  Let's give credit to UNH last night -- they played a terrific game.  I don't know where our passion was, but hey, that's sports.

[dragonday92]

Does anyone know why Schafer and the coaches didn't go out on the ice after the game and shake hands/congratulate the other team?  Doesn't seem like him to do that and quite frankly it was a bit disappointing.

[Towerroad]

Tom Lento

Thank you for your insightful analysis. I learned a great deal. Elsewhere I have argued that under Schafer Cornell will be a # 10 team with a standard error of +/- 3

So, I buy what you said. Rock solid defense, attention to detail. The shortcomings are a very predictable, simple power play (For a contrast look at UNH's second PP last night where the compressed the defense and were able to pass through the defense to the open man, it was pretty) and challenges moving the puck. Are these limitations coach-able? If they are wouldn't it make sense to spend a bit more time working on these limitations instead of polishing the things we are really good at?

[HockeyMan]

No no no no no. A thousand times no. Everything you claim the "coaches don't say" is flat wrong. It's a system that depends on footwork, positioning, beating the other team to the puck, and maintaining possession in the offensive zone. If you fail to maintain possession in the offensive zone, you have superior defensive zone play and excellent goaltending to fall back on, so you always keep the games close and you can eke out wins even when you're not executing in the offensive end or when you're just getting beat by superior talent. The failings of recent teams have not been the system, which is why I think a lot of the complaints are invalid - they're based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Cornell (men's) hockey has been about for the past 15 years.

These are schoolmarmish banalities trying hard to be profundities.  Perfectly obvious points, and entirely in keeping with the core assertion: Schafer's system is a defensively-oriented system that depends to a greater extent than others on superior goaltending.

You, and others complaining about the system and clamoring for these mythical "faster skill players" who will suddenly materialize and carry Cornell to a title, are confusing a relative lack of offensive talent with a failing of the system. In 2003 Cornell had 4 d-men with excellent offensive skills in Cook, Downs, Murray, and McRae. I can't think of any blueliner on this year's team (or any Cornell team since Pokulok left) who could compare with Murray or McRae in that department, and there were maybe one or two as good as Cook and Downs. I haven't even mentioned Travis Bell yet, and he was also solid with the puck. In 2003 Cornell had 4 full lines of forwards who were positionally *amazing* at both ends of the ice, with 2 or 3 legitimately great college power forwards, not to mention a guy who was superb at putting the puck in the net from the top of the crease, a playmaker who's had a few cups of coffee in the NHL despite being 5'8" on skates, and a rookie named Matt Moulson who's got nearly 30 goals in the NHL this year. This year's team basically had one line that matched up well with the 2003 squad. Not to take anything away from this year's team, because I've been impressed with the way the third and fourth line have played, but they just didn't have the offensive depth of the 2003 team.

Please.  No one's saying these players should "suddenly materialize and carry Cornell to the title."  The question, rather, is whether under the current system such players are likely to materialize over the short and medium term and with regularity.  Maybe they can't under any circumstances (though let's not exaggerate CU's recruiting weakness in this regard: this is a storied program, with a superb fan base and a great venue and sterling academics), but that's another question.  And let's not exaggerate the offensive prowess of Downs and Cook, shall we?  As for your last sentence, well...yes.  But perhaps 2003 was an outlier.

The system in 2003 wasn't any different than it is today. It's not the system. It isn't even the recruiting, and I doubt it's the coaching. It's the fact that a team full of national championship caliber players only comes around every so often even at the top programs, and at a place like Cornell the stars align far less frequently precisely because the Big Red *can't get* top line talent. You covet Yale's forwards, but Yale can't get top line talent either, and they will never be able to consistently compete for a national title with their current approach. They will always come up against a team built just like them, but with better and faster players, and they'll lose badly because they'll have no defensive presence to fall back on when they come up against that faster team.

Now you're getting interesting.  Agreed, the stars will align less frequently here and at Yale than they do at NoDak or Wisconsin.  Top-line talent will be harder to come by.  (This suggests, btw, that Ivy teams are consistently overranked nationally.  If they get too little respect in men's BB, maybe they got too much in hockey.)  The question then becomes whether Allain's system is likely to be more successful than Schafer's.  Time will tell.

[gored]

I can't even believe this conversation exists.  Every other ECAC team would kill for Cornell's success, as would about 30 other NCAA teams.  It's not the '60s .... be happy with what you have.  And when you call Cornell "just a bunch of of big, slow guys" then it shows you really just aren't paying attention.

Schafer squeezes every ounce out of the program.  Saying his system doesn't work in the NCAAs is asinine.  6-2 in the first round.  Even in those games when Cornell was supposedly the favorite, because they were the higher seed, they were always doubted - their record was theoretically inflated because of the ECAC etc.... In most of those games, their KRACH rating was lower than their opponent, even if they were the higher seed.  They won those games because Schafer generally gets it done when it counts ... this year is a rarity. That's testament enough right there.

The program will regroup and reload - and be fine.  Anyone who complains about this really just has no idea how easily it could all go South without the right staff.

Well said Adam.  I am definitely with you.  As I said earlier, i have been following Cornell hockey for over 20 years and I remember when we celebrated because we advanced to the ECAC finals.  Winning the ECAC seemed like it was an impossible dream for years.  So I am thrilled with the success of the past decade.  Right now, I am just sad because the last two years we have been placed in a region where the #4 beat the #1 and have still missed out on the FF.  Maybe our team was looking past UNH this year and Bemidji last year. Who knows?  I think that, whether or not Riley leaves, we will a bit down next year before returning to form in 2 years.

[Scersk '97]

I think that, whether or not Riley leaves, we will a bit down next year before returning to form in 2 years.

And "a bit down," in this case, may be a solid run at another ECAC championship and tempered but realistic national aspirations.

I doubt Garman's an awful goalie, and Iles may be a phenom.  I like how our defense looks for next year.  We will sorely miss Kreuger, but, whether one likes his play or not, Brendon Nash will be gone, so it's time for the rest of the D-men to step it up.  I think they'll be up to the task.  Mike Devin had what seemed to me to be an off year; I think he'll come back with a vengeance in his senior season.  I look forward to Ross taking regular, important shifts and not having to worry whether or not he'll be in the lineup.  D'Agostino (who is still so young!) and Birch will continue to develop into stalwarts.  Hopefully one or two of the freshmen will join Ross and D'Agostino in representing the defensively-responsible but offensively-minded defenseman-type that we've been missing the last few years.  Whitney?  Well...  he's either going to surprise the hell out of me or fade into the background.  Personally, I think the difference between one freshman getting a regular shift and two freshmen getting regular shifts depends on how Whitney plays.

Whether Riley stays or goes, we may be "challenged" offensively.  But, you know, that's fine.  If we revert to '97-style Cornell hockey, we can still win a championship. It's about being disciplined and relentless.  We shall see.

[shawnny3]

Interesting thread.  I wonder why no one has yet stated the obvious: Cornell smoked this same team earlier this very year.  Was Shafer's system to blame then, too?  We played them twice, and each team totally outclassed the other once.  It happens.  That's sports.

As for the pattern of Cornell "failure", let me just amen the context others have given for Shafer's teams.  This is my first post to this forum - usually I just quietly follow the occasional thread.  But this time I simply cannot remain silent.  I grew up in Ithaca, have been watching Cornell games since the early '80s, have been coached by and played with former Cornell players, graduated from Cornell, etc.  I've seen Cornell get smoked by Harvard so many times that my loathing for them comes from a deep and ugly place, not from an academic inferiority complex.  My dad got me season tickets one year just because Cornell was playing Harvard at home on my birthday - a game Cornell lost, 5-0.  And I've seen us rise again and rip their hearts out in equally vicious and delicious fashion.  I was at the Weder series, when Cornell scored so many goals I actually felt remorse for an opponent (tempered with much rejoicing).  When I was in high school, I got to play a pick-up game with Kent Manderville and Dan Ratushny at Lynah the week after they returned from playing in the Olympics, still wearing their Team Canada gear.  Myself a goalie, at one point I stoned Manderville on a clean breakaway, a big thrill for me.

I've seen three head coaches at Cornell and heard about others from my parents, who have followed the team since the '60s.  Though one of those former coaches is a family friend, in objectivity I would have to concede that what Shafer has achieved with the program is far above and beyond anything his predecessors (excepting Harkness) have.  The halcyon days of being a perennial national title contender resulted from  Cornell's blazing the recruiting trail into Canada to find talent.  Now everybody does that.  And while I'm passionate about New York hockey, the youth programs here simply can't create the same homegrown talent that is found in Minny or Michigan or Mass.  So Cornell searches far and wide with a pretty limited budget to find the best it possibly can, and Shafer does an unbelievable job of consistently replacing valuable players with solid recruits who he then develops into the next class of valuable players.  Cornell, quite simply, has a tradition that Shafer respects and teaches his players to respect, and he gets as much as humanly possible out of them.  Who would have thought that guys like Murray, Moulson, Bitz, O'Byrne, Vesce, etc. would be making contributions in the NHL?!  These guys just weren't that talented when they came to Cornell, and now they do enough things to be able to play the game at the highest level.  To imagine those guys ascending to that level by way of some other college or junior program is almost unimaginable.  Credit Shafer - his "system" produced those players.  In fact, his "system" is so good at developing quality forwards that it makes any goalie who dons the Cornell jersey an All-American candidate.  Let me say this as clearly as I can: Cornell does not recruit great goalies.  Cornell recruits solid goalies, goalies on par with the other players Cornell recruits, and makes them look great because it is that well coached.  The evidence?  Dadswell, D'Alessio, Crozier, Pelletier, Duffus, Leneveau, McKee, etc.  How many All-American goalies has Cornell had that have made zero impact on the NHL?  After Dryden (who came, remember, back when we were practically the only college team pilfering Canada's talent) we've had Hayward and Elliot play significantly in the NHL, and both had modest careers at best.  The rest have been "great" at Cornell and not so great afterward.  Many of those goalies were products of previous coaches, and Cornell coaches have long preached what Shafer does about responsible hockey, but Shafer just does it better than others have.  For Cornell to be consistently in the Top 10 is no less amazing now that it would have been in the '80s and '90s, but it is much more frequent.

As far as competing on the national stage with the best of the WCHA, CCHA, and Hockey East, the best way to win with lesser talent is by doing exactly what Cornell does - suffocating forechecking, backchecking, and defending.  Nothing wrong with those virtues.  When teams from the ECAC, AHA, and CHA win against the big boys, is it 7-6 or is it 2-1?  Would you rather try to engage those teams in shootouts or shutouts?  The choice is clear.  One of these days, one of these not-so-good Cornell teams is going to run the table in the NCAAs the way they just did the ECAC tournament and everyone will recognize Shafer for the genius he is.  Or maybe it will never happen.  But playing the way we play gives us the best ODDS of winning, not just in the ECAC but in the NCAAs.

I'm just as disappointed as anyone else with last night's performance (it was painfully awful to watch), but it was just one bad game, not reason to throw out a very successful coach with a very successful system.  I'm content to bide my time as a fan, knowing that each year Shafer will put on the ice a team with a legitimate chance to go all the way.  That's a pretty great feeling as a fan.  I've been a Cornell hockey fan my whole life, and there has never been a better time to be one than now.  Well, maybe the late '60s.  But besides that.

[adamw]

Now you're getting interesting.  Agreed, the stars will align less frequently here and at Yale than they do at NoDak or Wisconsin.  Top-line talent will be harder to come by.  (This suggests, btw, that Ivy teams are consistently overranked nationally.  If they get too little respect in men's BB, maybe they got too much in hockey.)  The question then becomes whether Allain's system is likely to be more successful than Schafer's.  Time will tell.

It's not a matter of stars being aligned - it's a matter of getting top-end talent. Period.  Frankly, because of the rising tide (Cornell) lifts all boats philosophy, schools like Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, etc... have been able to get a lot of top-end talent (relatively) moreso than the ECAC lull period of the early 2000s. There have also been these changes:

- St. Lawrence and Colgate have started awarding scholarships
- RPI fired its coach
- other big schools are losing their top-end talent more quickly, thanks to the pillaging by the NHL
- Yale, Harvard, Princeton's financial aid packages have been greatly improved

All of this makes it more possible for the ECAC to compete. Without those things, things would be worse off than they are.  So these things make it *possible* to compete nationally, but still very difficult.  And no other ECAC team has been able to do it.  Despite all of this, Cornell is the only one of them that can consistently win any NCAA games at all.  Think about that.

In regards to your comparison to Yale ... Yale already lost an NCAA game last year. This year, my guess is today's game with North Dakota won't be that competitive.  We'll find out soon - I hope I'm wrong.  I believe without a shadow of a doubt that Yale's system will be worse in the NCAAs, in the long haul, than Cornell's.  Trying to go offensively toe to toe with these other big-time programs, is foolish.  Does anyone really think Yale would score the most goals per game if they played in the WCHA every night?

That said - Cornell was behind 2-0 in each of the last three NCAA appearances - and had enough firepower to each time rally to win.  Think about that.  05, 06 and 09 - down 2-0 each time.  Cornell is not big and slow.  They are big, quick, and can play offense.  But the system is defense first, pay attention to detail, and wear the hell out of the other team by possessing the puck in the OFFENSIVE zone.  This is a PROVEN way to win given the talent Cornell can get.

Another point ... look at how many NHL players Dartmouth has produced in recent years.  Yet, Dartmouth can't even make the NCAA tournament. Something else to think about. Look at Yale again ... they put together this great team, yet despite their head coach being a former goalie, their goaltending is poor.  A great way to sabotage things.

Again - I can't even believe we're having this conversation - but I thought I'd give some perspective.

[Tom Lento]

Tom Lento

Thank you for your insightful analysis. I learned a great deal. Elsewhere I have argued that under Schafer Cornell will be a # 10 team with a standard error of +/- 3

So, I buy what you said. Rock solid defense, attention to detail. The shortcomings are a very predictable, simple power play (For a contrast look at UNH's second PP last night where the compressed the defense and were able to pass through the defense to the open man, it was pretty) and challenges moving the puck. Are these limitations coach-able? If they are wouldn't it make sense to spend a bit more time working on these limitations instead of polishing the things we are really good at?

Honestly, I think more time on passing would probably be beneficial, but it's a trade-off. 3 weeks working on passing and puck movement is 3 weeks where you can't really work on defensive zone responsibility, forechecking systems, and penalty kill positioning. It's 3 weeks where you can't work on shot-blocking. There are defensive benefits to good puck movement - we saw what bad passing can do to a defense yesterday - but I don't know if it's the right thing for Cornell to focus on in practice. At this point, Schafer has earned my trust - I believe he's working on the most important things - but I would really like to see Cornell become a better passing squad. The team hasn't really moved the puck well for the last 4-5 years.

[Tom Lento]

These are schoolmarmish banalities trying hard to be profundities.  Perfectly obvious points, and entirely in keeping with the core assertion: Schafer's system is a defensively-oriented system that depends to a greater extent than others on superior goaltending.

If they're so obvious then why do you still not get the fact that you're flat wrong? If anything, Schafer's system is *less* dependent on superior goaltending than a system built around high-flying forwards attacking in the offensive zone. Cornell's system emphasizes offensive zone possession (i.e. minimizing offensive opportunities for the other team), defensive zone positioning (i.e., eliminating high-quality offensive chances by keeping the shots on goal to the outside and from routine, less dangerous angles), and effective shot blocking (i.e., minimizing the total number of shots on goal). All of this means that Cornell really only requires a competent goaltender to be successful. Yes, when up against a team with better players you'll need superior goaltending to win. This isn't news, it's true for every single team in hockey, and it pretty clearly has nothing to do with Schafer's system.

Please.  No one's saying these players should "suddenly materialize and carry Cornell to the title."  The question, rather, is whether under the current system such players are likely to materialize over the short and medium term and with regularity.  Maybe they can't under any circumstances (though let's not exaggerate CU's recruiting weakness in this regard: this is a storied program, with a superb fan base and a great venue and sterling academics), but that's another question.  And let's not exaggerate the offensive prowess of Downs and Cook, shall we?  As for your last sentence, well...yes.  But perhaps 2003 was an outlier.

Downs and Cook were excellent at moving the puck, better than most of the Cornell blueliners I've seen. Still, the best D-men Cornell has in any given season are at least on par with Downs and Cook offensively, if not somewhat better. The point is that Downs and Cook were *not* the top d-men on that team.

As for the blue-chip offensive talents you crave, those players won't materialize with regularity at Cornell *ever* under *any* coach. Storied programs and sterling academics are nice, but NHL prospects don't give a crap about sterling academics and I'm guessing almost none of the elite college hockey recruits care that much about who played for your team 20, 30, or 40 years ago. Sterling academics also keep out far more players than they attract - at the end of the recruiting process the player still has to get in to the school. As for facilities - Lynah's a dump and from what I hear the general athletic facilities at Cornell pale in comparison to those at places like Michigan or Minnesota. The fans are great, and there's great history there, but to most recruits comparing Cornell to, say, North Dakota or Minnesota that's like a consolation prize. I haven't even mentioned the no scholarships issue, which is arguably the most important factor. Given the recruiting constraints, I'll take the coach who wins with what he can get, not the guy who can only win if he can get the best talent.

Of course, Schafer's staff also does a great job of recruiting. Cornell has had more than its fair share of astonishingly good players come through this program in the last 10 years, but with a few rare exceptions these guys were not highly touted recruits coming in. There's a reason they aren't high-flying, fast skating forwards with tremendous shots and an uncanny ability to find open men in front. There's a reason Cornell's recruits are generally not destined to become college hockey greats before they ever put on a college hockey sweater, and it's not because those players can't or won't play a left wing lock. The fact that many of them do become great college hockey players is a testament to both their talent and drive and the coaching and recruiting ability of Schafer and his staff.

Now you're getting interesting.  Agreed, the stars will align less frequently here and at Yale than they do at NoDak or Wisconsin.  Top-line talent will be harder to come by.  (This suggests, btw, that Ivy teams are consistently overranked nationally.  If they get too little respect in men's BB, maybe they got too much in hockey.)  The question then becomes whether Allain's system is likely to be more successful than Schafer's.  Time will tell.

Yes, time will tell, and I'll lay money that Allain's system won't work on the national stage. I'll be stunned if I'm wrong, because it's been tried before. Clarkson did it for years under Mark Morris. Look at their NCAA record during that time, and they were the absolute class of the ECAC - they were better and faster than everyone else in the league by a long shot, but they weren't great defensively and their goaltending wasn't positionally sound. When they got to the tournament and faced an equally fast team with a better goaltender they simply couldn't answer. SLU has gone for higher end talent and a more open system under Joe Marsh. They made the Frozen Four about 10 years back, and they had some of the best teams in the league around that time, but they haven't been anywhere near that quality since and for all his success Marsh has only been able to achieve occasional national prominence at SLU. In the last 2 years Allain has 2 RS titles, 1 ECAC title, 0 NCAA wins, and a QF loss at home to Brown. Yale was the class of the ECAC the past 2 years. So far, this is a familiar story, but I'll certainly watch Yale with interest for the next few years to see how they do.

Of course, I believe Yale can get to the Frozen Four, and they could even win a national title (although with Backman out it's extremely unlikely). If they ride a hot goalie and catch a magical run of near-perfect execution from their top 2 lines, it could happen. The same thing is true for Cornell. The difference is it's been true for Cornell for about 7 of the last 10 years, Cornell has been consistently successful in early-round play at the NCAAs, and now people who don't understand the first thing about how Schafer coaches and have no perspective on the realities of recruiting in college hockey are demanding more. I got news for you - there are maybe half a dozen hockey programs that can expect to both compete for a title on a regular basis and win one every few years. They all have scholarships, lower academic standards, and bigger hockey budgets than Cornell.

As for your comment about Ivy teams, Cornell and Yale were both overrated in the polls for most of this year. The statistical rankings had both teams pegged about right - somewhere near the top 10, but nowhere near the top 5. For an Ivy program, that's probably the best you can hope for. Top 10ish year in and year out, with the oddball magical run into title contention and a (more frequent) drop off the bubble during rebuilding years.

[Towerroad]

From my perspective it is a case of marginal analysis. As a whole I think we would be better off taking some period of time and instead of moving our defense from the top 5% in the country to the top 2% working on moving our puck handling from 50% to 65%. I think that would make the team stronger overall. (Clearly,I made the numbers up to illustrate the point).

However, I am not sure if puck handling is a coach-able skill at this level. I would let those more knowledgeable comment.

Along the boards we are monsters, set up in front of the net we are impenetrable, in transition and in unsettled play we are weak. It seems to me that we have to work on our weaknesses if we want to get better not hone our strengths.